Craig Small

Craig Small was shot at point blank range in the head outside a chicken shop in Harrow Road, Monks Park at 8.10pm on 5 July 2019.

Two men were tried for his murder but the trial resulted in a hung jury and a retrial was ordered. At the second trial 38-year-old Courtney Ellis was convicted of his murder for his part in being the driver of the car that the gunman made his escape in and another man was convicted of perverting the course of justice.

However, it was noted that the actual gunman was still at large.

Craig Small had been a grime rapper and the prosecution at the trial said that the shooting was an example of gangland rivalry 'boiled over'.

He was shot outside the fast food restaurant Cottage Chicken and Pizza on Harrow Road by a man that got out of a blue Mini, driven by another man, that pulled up nearby. The gunman got out of the car and ran up to Craig Small, who was on his phone, and shot him once in the head, the bullet hitting his right cheek and then passing through the base of his brain. After Craig Small fell to the ground the gunman turned to flee but then stopped and fired again, hitting the pavement, but part of the bullet hit Craig Small's eye.

The shot had been fired with a handgun less than a metre from his face.

The gunman then got back in the car which was then driven off at speed by Courtney Ellis.

The gunman was described as wearing dark clothing and a face mask.

Following his shooting the owner of Cottage Chicken and Pizza called 999 and Craig Small was taken to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington but was pronounced dead at 9pm. His cause of death was given as a gunshot wound to the head.

Seven minutes after Craig Small was shot the blue mini was driven to the Wembley Park tube station area where the gunman got out and tried to open fire at a white Mercedes car, however, it was thought that no bullet was fired and no one was harmed. Courtney Ellis was however, convicted of attempted murder for that.

Two other men were charged with helping to later dispose of the car, a man with a flatbed truck and another man.

The prosecution said that the murder was carefully planned and not the result of a spontaneous argument, stating that it was part of a tit-for-tat rivalry between the Stonebridge gang and the Church Road Soldiers from the Church End Estate, both in the Brent area.

It was noted that both Craig Small and the second target in the white Mercedes had both appeared in rap videos with other members of the Stonebridge gang.

The trial heard that in the hour before the murder that there had been a significant amount of phone contact between the men on trial and that immediately after the shooting that the driver of the blue Mini called the man that owned the black Volvo car and that they then drove off to Kingsbury where the blue Mini was dumped and they got into the Volvo and were driven off.

It was noted that the blue Mini had false numberplates.

The prosecution said, 'The requirement for a second vehicle, the Volvo, was pre-arranged. Planned escape was necessary and couldn’t be left to chance. The blue Mini would immediately be circulated by police as the suspect vehicle. Those in it needed a ready-made escape plan. The Volvo was integral to that plan. The driver had to be someone who could be trusted. The owner of the Volvo was such a person. He would know the identity of the gunman and driver. He would have to be part of the plan before the shooting, he would have known the details of the plan, what was intended and have been prepared to act as part of a team at a moment’s notice'.

It was heard then that after the blue Mini was dumped, that one of the men contacted the man with the flat-bed truck for what the prosecution described as 'the beginning of the clear-up operation', which involved the blue Mini being collected the following day by the flatbed pick-up truck and disposed of. It was claimed that he disposed of the blue Mini at a scrap yard between 5 July and 7 July 2019. The fourth man on trial was said to have assisted in getting rid of the Mini.

Craig Small’s murder was caught on CCTV which was later shared on the internet and showed the gunman shooting Craig Small as he was standing up against the shop front. However, it was not known how the footage came to be in the public domain although a member of the Metropolitan police’s North West Command Unit was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office whilst a police sergeant in the North West Command Unit was interviewed under criminal caution. They were both said to have been additionally under investigation for gross misconduct.

It was said that the policeman had made a recording of the CCTV of the shooting on his mobile phone and that laughter could be heard in the background as they did so.

Craig Small's rap name was 'Smallz'.